by Jim Phillips for Clear Actions
The Supreme Court decision that may effectively end abortion rights has many profoundly disturbing implications. The decision tells women in America that their lives don’t matter, or that their lives can be relegated to the decisions of small groups of (mostly) men. This is disastrous enough, but there is much more.
How many women will die as a result of prohibiting safe abortions? Will the country, the state, the opponents of abortion care for the children born with deadly medical conditions or the women injured for life because of unsafe abortions? Will the prisons fill up with women who are suspected of criminal acts because they have a miscarriage?
The idea that some small groups have a right to determine the disposition of women’s bodies is the same idea that underscores other forms of control over the physical bodies of others, going back to the “logic’ of slavery that, apparently, is still alive in certain places, including the halls of the Supreme Court and certain state legislatures. Where does this idea end? If you have a lot of money, are the right skin color, or immigrate from the right countries, you may escape control—at least for now.
This is a decision that removes the right to privacy from the most intimate aspects of women’s lives, and indeed from the lives of couples and families. If the Constitution and the Court are not understood to be defending individual and family privacy in this matter, what else may follow? Justice Thomas and others have already given us the answer. The rights to contraception, marrying the partner of your choice, expressing sexual preferences, making decisions about how you identify your gender, even consensual acts between adults of the same gender or of different “races” may now be in the crosshairs (gun reference intended).
This Court decision threatens the privacy of the home, the bedroom and the doctor’s office, for starters. Will it also threaten the confidentiality of the law office and the confessional, as well? All of this may seem alarmist, but the logic is all the same, and it is clear that some folks still think the world would be better if there were less freedoms, not more. “When they came for women, I was a man, so I said nothing…” We know where this can lead. A stark example of a society without the right to personal privacy is North Korea.
If we are deeply concerned about human life, we must be concerned about the Court’s decision, even as we also oppose war, capital punishment, unrestricted gun and weapon use, inhumane immigration policies, and the stigmatization of LGBTQ youth—all of which kill our children and young people at astronomical rates.
In the few days since the Court’s decision was made public, there have been many protest demonstrations in cities and towns in the United States and in other countries. People recognize the right to control one’s body and the right to basic privacy as fundamental to any civilized democratic society.
The Rogue Valley has seen peaceful demonstrations in the past few days, and there will be more because this is a critical time for all human rights. We must pay attention and find ways to join with others in peaceful actions to protect these rights. Otherwise, there will be no rights.
